Bugonia

Year of release : 2025

Run time : 1h59m

Genre : Sci Fi / Dark Comedy

Cast : Emma Stone

The dark comedy is a remake of the 2003 South Korean movie "Save the green planet!".

Teddy is planning to kidnap Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a big pharmaceutical company, as he considers her an alien. He trains with his cousin who is autistic, telling him how he knows how to spot aliens.

Teddy thinks Michelle is part of the evil alien species known as Andromedans, who want to destroy earth, k1ll the bees (Teddy is a beekeeper), destroy the communities and keep people subservient.

Michelle trains in self defense and does yoga. She seems to be good at her job, and tries to be nice to her employees, although it seems kinda fake.

The two catch Michelle when she gets home from work. They steal her car, driving to Teddy's place. Teddy, who is driving, tells his cousin to shave her head immediately, so she won't be able to communicate with her species, as their hair is like antennas they communicate with.

Once they bring her into their basement, they take off her clothes and cover her body with antihistamine cream,giving her new clothes, so she won't be able to send distress signals to her species.

When Michelle comes to her senses, Teddy tells her she has 4 days, until the lunar eclipse (when he thinks their ship will be able to enter the earth's atmosphere undetected!), to talk to her emperor about his requests.

Michelle tells him she's not an alien.

Seeing it's not working, she records a message, but Teddy is not pleased, as he tells her it's not even recorded in their alien language, so she needs to do better, or he'll do worse things to her.

I personally enjoyed the movie, it even has some funny scenes although the subject is pretty serious.

For some unknown reason, Teddy, being a conspiracy theorist, is unkept, he doesn't cut his hair, doesn't clip his nails, and always wears dirty clothes. SPOILER - At the end his "conspiracy theories" prove to be correct (!), so why is he portrayed as an unreliable narrator, crazy, almost like the villain?!

Teddy considers Michelle and her company responsible for what happened to his mother, who is in a coma,due to the medical experiments Michelle's company do on her to make her better!

Michelle seems to try to give her employees better working hours, as she keeps on telling them they are free to leave at 17:30 daily, but only if they finished their quota for the day, and if their conscience allows them, meaning, on paper you can leave, in real life, you can't. Thing which makes her seem disingenuous, and also a boss who is working her employees to the bone .

MAJOR SPOILERS - What I don't understand is, earth was created by these aliens on their ship (!), which looks like a planet; they were much bigger than humans, like giants, humans were like ants, but when the emperor came back to the ship,meaning turned from the ant size to giant size, she was wearing the same clothes from earth!

Also, when she pokes the dome, why is there still blue skies?! There shouldn't be! Why are the animals, birds and insects still alive, since the air is gone? We see it evaporate with the clouds once the dome is broken! Make it make sense! It's not like she inserted some poison for the humans to die! She shattered the dome, meaning no blue sky and clouds, and no atmosphere!

I liked the visual effects. There's one reminiscing scene, in which Teddy's mother is floating like a balloon while he talks to Michelle. The scene is also in black and white.

The actors were all great.

Alicia Silverstone plays a small role as Teddy's mother.

I liked the soundtrack, it was eerie.

Bugonia is apparently an ancient Roman and Greek belief that honeybees could spontaneously generate from the rotting corpse of a sacrificed bull / ox! It's supposed to symbolize death and rebirth, and new life out of corruption.

The movie received positive reviews, but grossed (so far), 39 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of somewhere close to 55 million.

The movie was co-produced by Emma Stone and the original movie's director, Jang Joon-hwan, who was supposed to also direct, but had health problems.

The movie has a very long list of award nominations, including 3 Golden Globes for Best Actress, Best Actor for Jesse Plemons, and Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Rating : Worth a watch !